There are only a few Spanish civil war veterans left in America. Three thousand young romantics joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight the fascists in Spain in the 1930s. Inside the spare chapel of Forest Park’s Forest Home Cemetery, one of the hundred still living stood up to say a few words about a comrade who hadn’t made it as far.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Speaking as loud as he could, Hall told a story about Balchowsky. They met in basic training in 1937. When the singer Paul Robeson arrived in Spain to entertain the troops, he needed a pianist to accompany him. Balchowsky had studied the classics. “Eddie jumped up and volunteered. He still had both his arms. He gave a concert I wouldn’t forget.”
But the only relative here was a young man named Jeff Balch, a cousin twice removed. Balch discovered Balchowsky a decade ago while researching his family history. The family hadn’t spoken much about its black sheep cousin, but the more Balch learned about him–especially his leftist politics–the stronger the kinship he felt. Balch raised money for a memorial, and now he stood before Balchowsky’s admirers and whipped a shroud from a matte board replica of the stone. It read: “In Memory of Edward Ross Balchowsky 1916-1989 Artist, Poet, Raconteur, One-Armed Pianist, Veteran of the Spanish Civil War as a Volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Your Friends, Family and Fellow ‘Premature Anti-Fascists’ Salute You.”
“This ground is not only sacred ground for the American left, it’s sacred ground for the international left,” Nelson went on, reading from his handwritten text, “and that couldn’t be underlined more dramatically than by Eddie Balchowsky’s monument, because he gave an arm for Spanish democracy.”
